Category Archives: october

This is the first time we have a) thrown a Halloween party, and b) co-hosted an event with another couple. Our friends J & H are pretty awesome people — and she knits, like me, so you know she’s cool — and we decided to combine our party lists and have a joint bash at our house.

If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen several of the details Steve has made, and it was pretty cool to see our decor “in action” during the party.

Our guests ranged from Futurama characters to the villainous Joker, to Luigi and Diet Coke to Khal Drogo and his beloved Khaleesi. We also had Egyptian royalty, Indiana Jones, Nemo, Harry Potter, mad scientists, Frankenstein and his bride, groovy chicks, Miss Scarlet in the library with the rope, the Tardis, Walter Sobchak, Rosie the Riveter, and many other friends who made our party so much fun.

Word has it that the mysterious Lord Stonehouse, ancient owner of our home, made an appearance at midnight, but it remains a rumor.

Steve worked super hard to transform our home and I think he did an amazing job, and H made delicious food for everyone to fill their bellies – thanks to everyone, friends old and new, for coming to our party!

A few of you have asked how Steve made our son’s costume from the movie Pacific Rim – I asked him to write down an overview of the process.

Disclaimer 1 – he’s not a newbie. He’s been making costumes for a few years now and while some of the techniques were new to him, he’s always been good at putting things together. There is no way I could make something like this. I can sew and knit and make jewelry, but I’ve never made stuff like this.

Disclaimer 2 – he’ll be traveling for work in the upcoming days and won’t be available for any further or more detailed explanation. There are a lot of good tutorials on YouTube for building armor like this out of foam, and some cosplayers are very good at sharing their techniques as well.

Here it goes:

I started the build using a program called pepakura that ‘unwraps’ 3D images into their component sections. There is an artist on http://www.therpf.com which is the Replica Props Forum – a home for cosplay and movie prop reproductions. He ‘built’ the model for Gypsy Danger and I used this to print out the helmet. I printed it on cardstock and assembly was pretty easy with hot glue.

Once I had a basic shape and size for the helmet, I then used EVA foam mats which are the anti-fatigue floor mats that you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes or other home-improvement stores. If you find these on sale, STOCK UP! They aren’t cheap and you will go through them… I cut the foam mats into parts and bits and used hot glue to bond them. Almost all of this was done by eye. I wasn’t going for an EXACT duplicate of the movie, but a close approximation.

I followed many of the online tutorials for cosplay armor of Master Chef (Halo), Iron Man, and a few others. The real key is using a heat gun (not a blow dryer or embossing tool but the actual ~$30 one you buy at the hardware store) to heat mold parts into curves.

For the lights, I bought some very cheap book-lights from a Dollar Store. I glued these in place with hot-glue.

I sealed the foam with a glue wash (50% white glue / 50% water) for some sections and spray rubber (FlexiSeal or equivalent) for other spots that I needed to cover some bad seams with filler. Then I painted the entire thing in a base coat of exterior latex paint. This gives the armor a consistent and smooth coating. Over that, I used auto-body spray paint that had a slight metallic reflection. The movie Gypsy Danger was more of a naval battleship blue, but my son wanted it more metallic.

Under the entire suit, he wore a black turtleneck and black stretchpants that I picked up at the sporting goods store. While I was there, I spotted some Lacrosse gloves that were close to Gypsy Danger’s gauntlets, so I grabbed them (most expensive part of this build) and painted them the same way as the rest of the costume.

Also for the chest, I used an old CPU fan and powered it with a 9V battery so it would spin. 🙂

The build took me about 50 hours over the course of 2 weeks and I didn’t finish until the Halloween Morning. But I was learning through trial and error and that cost me a lot of time.

Last night our youngest accomplished something for the first time in his ten years of life. He went to the movie theater.

Because of his sensitivity to noise, he was never able to tolerate the loud sound of a movie theater and has had to wait until movies he wanted were out on DVD or available online to see them.

Only one giant, terrifying creature, the King of the Monsters himself, could get Alexander to try this new challenge:

Alexander has been waiting for this new movie, a Japanese release called Godzilla Resurgence, or Shin Godzilla; has learned to write the title in Japanese, and has made his own video trailers in anticipation of the movie. Needless to say, this was a big deal for him.

The four of us booked our tickets and got ready to support Alex through his first movie theater experience. He was thrilled to see the poster inside the theater and had his picture taken, he kept looking at me and smiling, thrilled to be watching his favorite movie character, and he was polite and quiet during the whole movie.

This morning, he was still raving about the experience, calling it “the best thing I’ve ever done.”

We’re proud of Alex, and of Aidan for being such a supportive brother, encouraging Alex and reassuring him so his little brother would have a good experience.

Although, considering how crazy we tend to get around the holidays, I might be keeping that sign up for a while 😀

The backing is an old puzzle tray we had, pieces had gone missing long ago but the tray itself was perfect for this project. Steve added plain thumbtacks, then cut out the letters from foam – yes, by hand, I keep entering those Silhouette giveaways but haven’t won one yet – and then glued them to the frame. The first coat of spray was a metallic copper, then he did a wash with black paint so the pigment would settle into the crevices, and finally he added some greenish paint for a rusted, patina look.

I think he did such a great job!!! He has a lot more planned for our front yard but we wanted to share this bit for now.

This time it was time for me to join my youngest and his class on a field trip. We went to one of our local pumpkin patches and had a blast. We’ve gone to Uesugi Farms a few times with our boys and we’ve always had a good time. They have hay rides, a train, a pumpkin lab to see the growth process, and my personal favorite, the honey booth. Not to be confused with a booth babe, the honey booth had lots of different flavors of honey grown in the farm itself. I tried two and they were yummy. My boy was less than impressed but I think it was more the texture of it that made him wrinkle his nose.

This morning was super chilly, so even though I love the cold weather, I brought along a knit scarf to keep my neck warm.

Later on it was a bit warmer so I was glad to wear this super light chevron-stripe top. We each got a pumpkin and I bought some small white pumpkins at 3 for a dollar. We were happy to be home but had a wonderful time with our friends and classmates.

I’ve seen cinnamon sticks wrapped around a candle throughout blogland, and decided it was the perfect accent for a little vignette.For my version, I chose a vanilla-scented candle, then wrapped a rubber band around it. I stuck cinnamon sticks between the rubber band and candle, then added a festive bow as a final touch.

Super easy, super cheap, and super scented! The candle was .99, the ribbon was a leftover piece from my fall wreath, and the cinnamon sticks came to $3.

Here is the candle on my little tray with a favorite fall picture of one of my boys and a blingy votive holder:

Hope you enjoyed my craft! I will be linking up to the It’s Fall Y’all craft linky party!